Paul Ortiz (born 1964) is an American

historian A historian is a person who studies and writes about the past and is regarded as an authority on it. Historians are concerned with the continuous, methodical narrative and research of past events as relating to the human race; as well as the st ...

. Ortiz is a professor of history at the

University of Florida The University of Florida (Florida or UF) is a public land-grant research university in Gainesville, Florida. It is a senior member of the State University System of Florida, traces its origins to 1853, and has operated continuously on its ...

and is Director of the

Samuel Proctor Oral History Program The Samuel Proctor Oral History Program (SPOHP) is the official oral history program at the University of Florida. With over 6,500 interviews and more than 150,000 pages of transcribed material, it is one of the premier oral history programs in ...

Life and education

Born in 1964, Paul Ortiz is a third-generation military veteran and a first-generation college graduate. Ortiz served as a paratrooper and radio operator, attaining the rank of sergeant, in the

United States Army The United States Army (USA) is the land warfare, land military branch, service branch of the United States Armed Forces. It is one of the eight Uniformed services of the United States, U.S. uniformed services, and is designated as the Army o ...

from 1982 to 1986 with the 82nd Airborne Division and the

7th Special Forces Group The 7th Special Forces Group (Airborne) (7th SFG) (A) is an operational unit of the United States Army Special Forces activated on 20 May 1960. It was reorganized from the 77th Special Forces Group, which was also stationed at Fort Bragg, Nor ...

Central America Central America ( es, América Central or ) is a subregion of the Americas. Its boundaries are defined as bordering the United States to the north, Colombia to the south, the Caribbean Sea to the east, and the Pacific Ocean to the west. ...

. He received the US Armed Forces' Humanitarian Service Medal for meritorious action in the wake of the eruption of the

Nevado del Ruiz The Nevado del Ruiz (), also known as La Mesa de Herveo ( en, Mesa of Herveo, the name of the nearby town) is a volcano on the border of the departments of Caldas and Tolima in Colombia, about west of the capital city Bogotá. It is a stratov ...

stratovolcano in Tolima, Colombia, in November, 1985. Returning to the United States in 1987, Ortiz worked as a labor organizer with the United Farm Workers of Washington State during the 8-year boycott of Chateau Ste. Michelle Wines, which resulted in a union contract for vineyard workers in 1995 that remains in force to this day. During his time in graduate school at Duke University, Ortiz and Sheila Payne worked as volunteer organizers with the Farm Labor Organizing Committee during its Mt. Olive Pickle Boycott. This struggle resulted in a union contract for farm workers in North Carolina. Ortiz and Payne also served as board members of Student Action with Farmworkers during this time period. In Gainesville, Ortiz and Sheila Payne have been active in a number of social justice organizations including the Alachua County Labor Coalition, the NAACP, and Gainesville Veterans for Peace, Chapter 14. Ortiz has served as president and a council member of the United Faculty of Florida UF-FEA/NEA/AFT/ AFL-CIO.

Publications

Ortiz's publications include ''Emancipation Betrayed'' (University of California Press) a history of the Black Freedom struggle in Florida, and ''Remembering Jim Crow: African Americans Tell About Life in the Jim Crow South'' (New Press). His book awards include the Lillian Smith Book Prize, the Harry T. and Harriett V. Moore Book Prize, and a PEN Oakland Josephine Miles Literary Award. His published essays appear in a wide array of publication venues and types, including ''Latino Studies'', ''The Oral History Review'', ''Radical History Review'', ''Truthout'', ''Against the Current'', ''Southern Exposure'', and popular press in writings about African American and Latino histories and politics. His essay on the radical black abolitionist Henry Highland Garnet (1815-1882) was published in Time Magazine online in 2018. Ortiz has also published pieces on social movement icons such as Stetson Kennedy and Laura Dixie, an organizer of the 1956 Tallahassee Bus Boycott. Mrs. Dixie was known as "The Mother of the Movement" in Tallahassee. Ortiz's work on the 1920 Ocoee, Florida Election Day Massacre has been widely cited in academic and popular media. Ortiz is currently working on three new books: "Settler Colonialism and the ‘War on Terror’: 1492 to the Present," which will be published by Beacon Press He is also co-editing a book on social movement history with Wesley Hogan of Duke University titled "Changing the System Now: People Power, History, and Organizing in the 21st Century," which includes contributions by William Greider, Lane Windham, Ernie Cortes and other activist intellectuals. He is currently finishing a synthesis of the segregated South with William H. Chafe titled: "Behind the Veil: African Americans in the Age of Segregation, 1895-1965."

Selected Bibliography

*'' An African American and Latinx History of the United States'' (ReVisioning American History, 2018) *''Emancipation Betrayed'' University of California Press (2006) *''Remembering Jim Crow'' by William H. Chafe (Editor), Raymond Gavins (Editor), Robert Korstad (Editor), with Paul Ortíz and others New Press (2008)

Notes

External links

About the Director of the Samuel Proctor Oral History Program
{{DEFAULTSORT:Ortiz, Paul 21st-century American historians 21st-century American male writers Historians of the United States Historians of African Americans Historians of the Caribbean Historians of Latin America Historians of Mexico Labor historians Oral historians Central America solidarity activists American anti-war activists Workers' rights activists American academics of Mexican descent University of Florida faculty Duke University alumni Evergreen State College alumni 20th-century American military personnel United States Army soldiers Hispanic and Latino American military personnel 1964 births Living people American male non-fiction writers